


Towards the Light

by KaterineBlack



Series: Shadows Rest [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Assassin Spencer Reid, BAMF Spencer Reid, Emily only appears in the one chapter - she will be back later in the series, Gen, Mutant Spencer Reid, Possibly Pre-Slash, Pre-Canon, Pre-Iron Man 1, SHIELD Agent Spencer Reid, before Spencer joins BAU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-07-13 13:18:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16018733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaterineBlack/pseuds/KaterineBlack
Summary: Spencer Reid had spent the last seven years being forced to kill for HYDRA, fearing for his mother the whole time.Then one day he was rescued by SHEILD and while his job didnt change his life certainly did. he found a family who accepted him amoung some of the top SHIELD agents and slowly got used to being his own person again.(working title and summary)





	1. A Rescue and A Choice

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Unlikely Heroes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9555122) by [SpencerRemyLvr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpencerRemyLvr/pseuds/SpencerRemyLvr). 
  * Inspired by [Beneath the Surface](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11601423) by [Marvel_fanatic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marvel_fanatic/pseuds/Marvel_fanatic). 



> So this is the first fic I've posted on here  
> The second chapter is being betad by my lovely beta Jeldenil as I post this  
> I'm going to try and post each chapter when the next one is being betad but I'm about to start my second year at uni so updates may become slow  
>   
> minor edits (spag not plot) done 17/02/19

Director Fury sat in his office while he listened to the communications of his agents. They were raiding the most recent HYDRA base SHIELD had discovered. It had all been going as normally as a mission of this type could go when they found the boy locked in a cell. From the information on the computers in the base, he understood the boy was a mutant. He was both the assassin known as Nephthys and the assassin known as Keres. Which was mildly surprising, as the rumours about Keres identified them as male but the information on Nephthys was about a female. Although, with the skill and rumoured kill count of the two assassins, these so-called acts could be proven wrong. He ordered the field agents to sedate the boy so that he could be transported to the helicarrier where he could be assessed and questioned more easily.

\--------------------------------------------------------------

Spencer woke to a fuzzy head in an unfamiliar room. Suddenly a man with an eye-patch entered. Now he looked around he realised it was more of a cell. The man sat down on the solitary chair. As Spencer continued to look around the room, the man spoke.  
“Hello Keres, or is it Nephthys? I am Nick Fury the Director of SHIELD.”  
“I will respond to either.” he said cautiously, “Why am I not dead now? I wouldn't have thought that SHIELD would have been interested in me, with either of my reputations.”  
“Now, Keres I'm sure you can imagine the uses an organisation like SHIELD would have for someone with your type of skills. And I'm sure you'd prefer working for us rather than being dead. I will leave you in here for a few days to consider your options.” With that, Fury left the cell.  
Spencer briefly felt the minds and emotions of others when the door opened but was quickly cut off once the door closed again. He found the silence disconcerting.

\--------------------------------------------------------------

Three days passed, Spencer estimated based on the intervals in which food was delivered through a flap in the door. The lights were turned off as an imitation, he assumed, of night. When the door opened instead of the flap at what Spencer guessed was lunch time, he looked up and saw a different man carrying two trays of food and a chair into the cell. The man passed one of the dishes to Spencer and then sat down.  
“Well Keres,” he spoke calmly, “have you considered our offer?”  
“Is it normal SHIELD policy to torture people they wish to sway to their side?” Spencer spat.  
“Torture?” the man asked, shocked, “I made sure no one was able to come in or out —”  
“Exactly! What do you think happens to an empath or a telepath, when they don't get the low-level feedback from the people around them, let alone a duel path?” Spencer replied.  
“I hadn't realised that those were your mutations. We found the results of your blood-work in the HYDRA files showing that you had the x-gene, but we didn’t find any record of what your powers were. I can try and find a couple of agents who could come and sit in here but only for an hour or two each day.”

Spencer didn't move as he watched the man finish one of the trays of food and leave. As he was leaving the man turned at the door and said: “By the way, I am agent Phil Coulson.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------

Phil Coulson did not allow the anger he felt towards the treatment of Keres to show as he marched to the Director's office.  
“Did you know?” He demanded as he entered the room.  
Nick’s face didn't change from his usual blank mask as he replied, “Know what?”  
“Did you know that Keres was a duel path and the way we have been keeping him in that cell is tantamount to torture. I thought you were trying to get him to sign on with SHIELD, this sort of treatment won't make him any more inclined to join us.” By the end of the this Phil had managed to calm down to speak at a lower level and had sat in the open chair opposite Nick.  
“No, I didn’t. You have all the information I have on them. Do you have a solution for this complication? I wanted to keep them in isolation until I could be sure they wouldn't try to escape as soon as we released them.”  
“I'm going to find a couple of low-level agents who don't have any knowledge of sensitive or classified materials, and I will have them deliver the meals instead of having the meals pushed through the door. That should be enough for them to be more talkative in a couple of days when I'll go and talk to them again.

\--------------------------------------------------------------

After the revelation about some of his powers, Spencer found that while he was still being kept locked within a single room, he was not slowly descending into isolation madness. Instead of his meals just being pushed through the hatch at the bottom of the door, they were now brought in by various SHIELD agents. None of them spoke to him, but just the feeling of other people being around him even for only a couple of hours a day was much better than the maddening enforced solitude that he had been exposed to before.  
The man, Agent Coulson he’d called himself, came back again after nine meals, so Spencer assumed it had been three days.  
“Hello again Keres, I hope you're feeling better than you were last time we spoke.”  
Spencer looked at the agent as he sat down in front of him. He was dressed in a similar nondescript suit as the other agents. There didn't seem to be any markers that showed him to be higher in the agency than any of the other agents he had met, but this was the man who had organised the ending of the mental isolation he had been being kept in. And he was the only person apart from Director Fury to have spoken to him.  
“I don't feel like I'm slowly going mad anymore,” he replied to the agent after a few minutes. He wasn't sure why the agent was so concerned about his well being.  
“Well Keres, that's good, do you have any other powers that cause problems for your health?”

Spencer hesitated. He could tell them - which might mean he would be let out of the cell - but they could just want to find out about them to use him the way HYDRA had. He could do a fair amount of damage with his training, let alone using his powers to find out information.  
Spencer almost jumped when the agent spoke again. “Don't worry, I'm not asking for any nefarious reasons. I just want to make sure you don't die. Don't get me wrong; we do want you to join SHIELD, but we want you to be your own person and not just a machine retrieving information and killing for us. If you don't want to tell me, is there anything I can get you to make you more comfortable while you consider our offer? Barring some restrictions, of course.”  
Spencer thought for a few minutes, “What are the restrictions?”  
“You can't have access to anything connected to the internet since that would allow you to communicate with anyone outside of the base.”  
“Am I allowed study material, specifically on university level chemistry of PhD level maths, and something to write with?”  
“As long as you're fine with a whiteboard and marker rather than paper, then yes. You can have those things. You are only sixteen though, are you actually able to follow that level of material?”  
“I don't believe that intelligence can be accurately quantified, but I do have an IQ of 187, an eidetic memory, can read 20,000 words per minute. So yes I can understand them. None of that's part of my mutation either.”  
After Spencer said that Phil stood up and left the room.

\--------------------------------------------------------------

Phil watched as Nephthys worked on an equation which he did not understand. She seemed more relaxed than she had while in the cell before that. Even though she still seemed to be tense and ready to attack.  
Nephthys looked up as he entered the room and Phil was surprised to see that she actually relaxed slightly when she saw it was him and not one of the agents who brought her food.  
“Hello Agent Coulson”  
“Hello Nephthys, how are you finding the resources we provided for you?”  
“Thank you, Agent Coulson, it's beneficial in continuing my studies. The people at HYDRA didn't like the fact I wanted to study. They had me from when I graduated high school when I was twelve until you rescued me from them. If I hadn't been taken by them I'm sure I would have finished my first degree much quicker.”  
“SHIELD is willing to fund your further education. It doesn't necessarily have to be relevant to spy work, but we may require you to consult with our science division.”  
“I assume that this would only happen if I became a SHIELD agent.” She paused and then continued. “Would SHIELD be able to find and protect someone as a condition of my working for them?”  
“I can certainly be able to ask about this. If we can, does that mean you will accept our offer?”  
“If you come back with a yes on my one condition, I will tell you what the rest of my mutations are and join SHIELD.”  
Phil left the cell and walked to Nick’s office.

\--------------------------------------------------------------

Nick looked up as Phil entered his office, “What's happened?”  
“Nephthys has said they will accept our offer of employment on one condition, though they have not given us the full details of their condition. They are protecting someone. That was their request; find and protect someone, but they won't tell us who until we say we can do this.”  
“I cannot see any issue with that, though depending on who it is there might be a problem.”  
“If that's the case i will go and talk to them.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------

Spencer watched the agent as he re-entered the cell, he couldn't tell from his expression whether SHIELD was willing to agree on the condition he had set.  
“Who is the person you want us to protect?” the agent asked. Spencer stared at him for a minute, for all he hoped that his condition would be accepted, he had not thought that they actually would agree to it.  
“My mom, she's not” he hesitated, “she's not well, mentally. She has paranoid schizophrenia. My dad walked out on us when I was ten. And I managed to keep us together while I was at high school. She had her bad days, but she was stable for the most part and could work. I don't know what happened to her after HYDRA took me. They used to threaten to find her and kill her to keep me in line.”  
“If you tell me her name I can find her, and we can get her treatment.” the agent said as soon as Spencer finished speaking.  
“Dr Diana Reid, she specialised in 15th Century Literature. I’m Spencer Reid. My powers are telepathy and empathy, technopathy, appearance shifting and I have a strong healing factor. I don't believe I was meant to have all of them. I think one of the drugs that HYDRA gave me did something to reactivate my X-gene.”  
“I will organise a search for your mother, but first let me get you moved into a proper apartment. We don't want you living off the base until after you turn eighteen, as people would get suspicious of an unsupervised minor.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------

Phil watched as Spencer slowly adjusted to working for SHIELD. He completed various types of missions with Phil as his handler and seemed to settle into a routine while he was at the compound. He seemed to have three main appearances he would swap between: Nephthys, who was a tall female with straight long dark black hair and hazel eyes, Keres, a shorter male with dark brown hair and eyes almost nondescript in appearance, and Spencer, which was as far as Phil could tell his original form; an almost stick thin tall male with slightly curly light brown hair and gray eyes. As far as Phil could tell Spencer rarely used this form apart from in his own room and in Phil's office, having seemed to adopt his room as a place of sanctuary early on.

\--------------------------------------------------------------

As he got used to living at SHIELD, Spencer found himself spending more and more time in Phil’s office studying and adding to his collection of degrees. He had arrived with a bachelor's degree in Mathematics already. He completed his bachelors in Chemistry and started PhDs in Mathematics and Chemistry as well as a bachelor's degree in Engineering. Phil added an additional desk to his office, so Spencer was not forced to work on the floor or disturb the piles of mission reports and briefings that were neatly organised on Phil’s desk. Spencer found that the people from SHIELD were encouraging of his interest in learning new things. Phil specifically told him that any knowledge he gained through the pursuit of the multiple degrees could possibly help him on a mission.  
Each time he returned from a mission, he would go straight to Phil's office after he debriefed and would relax on a sofa that Phil kept in his office for the times when Phil couldn’t get back to his apartment due to active missions. Spencer found that he was finding it easier to relax around Phil and the agents Phil was particularly invested in, Hawkeye and Black-widow. Hawk-eye, in particular, seemed to think of him as a younger brother, while Black-widow was more reserved. However, Spencer could see that this was partly due to her own training and not anything that was solvable on his part. Around anyone else in SHIELD, Spencer found himself tense and ready for attack. None of the agents were genuinely able to cope with his shifting and what they should call him; they seemed to find his ability to change gender particularly troubling and often used the wrong pronouns. The only ones who didn't have issues were Director Fury, who didn’t have any problems changing the pronouns he was using, Phil, who only used gender-neutral pronouns, and The Hawk and Widow, who used neutral pronouns when they couldn't see what he was presenting as. Otherwise, they used the correct name and pronouns whenever he was in sight.

\--------------------------------------------------------------

As Spencer walked towards Phil’s office to be briefed on his next mission, he thought that he might have found a place for himself. While he was not trusted by the majority of the agents he passed while on base, he had found a group of people who accepted him for who he was and encouraged his interests outside of his missions.


	2. A Mission and A Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer goes on a simple mission and then has a meeting on the plane back to the States

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter has been written and is just waiting to be beta'd it will *hopefully not be more than a week before the full chapter is posted
> 
> here are the first few sentences which don't give very much away. My beta hasn't seen this chapter at all so any mistakes are on me.
> 
> \---------------------------------------------------  
> I have also done minor edits on the first chapter, just spelling mistakes and such which jumped out at me when i reread it (which i missed before i first posted, which is on me and not my lovely beta)
> 
> \----------------------------------------------------  
> So my Beta is still busy and so I've decided to post this as CH3 is already over 1k words this means there may be slight edits to this once my beta has some more time and can look at this but I doublt they'll be major changes

The mission itself was simple, he was to retrieve a data chip from an informant using a party as the background to the mission, he had been on similar missions in the past and had never had any complications. The unusual thing about this mission was that instead of just having a brief interaction with the informant which was only long enough to pass the chip or codes between them, this time he was to pose as the informant’s partner. The ball was being held by Ambassador Prentiss in the American embassy in Rome. The informant was the ambassador’s daughter Emily who worked at Interpol. It would be easier to be written off as one of her flings rather than have a random man dance with her as she rarely danced with anyone other than her date at these events.  
While Spencer was only seventeen, his shifting powers allowed him to appear older than he was, for this mission he looked like himself but about five years older. Agent Prentiss was 27 so he looked about the right age to be a slightly younger date. He was wearing a black suit with a purple tie. As he approached the embassy, he checked that his weapons weren’t visible and checked that his earpiece was working correctly.  
“Keres,” he heard Phil though his ear-piece, “you look like you are going to the event, none of the weapons you are carrying will set off the security. Breathe and go in, we need the information that Agent Prentiss is passing over to you.” Hearing the voice of his handler, Spencer squared his shoulders and walked through the security checkpoint and into the ballroom. He saw his contact across the room at the bar and so began making his way through the guests towards her.  
She looked up as he approached “Kaden, you’ve arrived!” she wrapping her arm around his she turned to the man she had been talking to, “Asher, this is my colleague Kaden, Kaden this is Asher Cross, he runs Cross Enterprise and is a friend.”  
“It’s nice to meet you, Mr Cross.” Spencer held out his hand, he felt a jolt of power as his empathy was brushed by something, Mr Cross must also be a mutant he realized.  
“Please call me Asher, I would like to think that any friend of Emily’s is a friend of mine.” Spencer saw him begin to frown, “I would hope that she can count her colleagues as friends.”  
“I would like to think we are friends. We’ve been in some pretty tight situations together, even if we haven’t known each other very long” Spencer kept half an ear on Agent Prentiss while she added details to their cover story. He was more interested in watching Asher’s face and observing his emotions, while Agent Prentiss was obviously an accomplished liar, Asher’s emotions told Spencer that he didn’t believe a word she was saying. Suddenly, Spencer’s earpiece came to life, “Keres, you need to get the chip from Agent Prentiss and give your excuses to leave. There are HYDRA agents also attending the ball, and we don’t want to risk them recognizing you.”  
“Agent Prentiss, would you be so kind as to give me the honor of gracing me with a dance?” he bowed at the waist and offered her his hand. She took his hand, and he led her out onto the dance floor. “I need you to pass the chip to me now, there has been a complication. You won't be in any danger as long as I leave here soon.”  
Agent Prentiss moved one of her hands as if adjusting her hair and then returned it to his carefully passing the chip to him. He palmed it and slipped it into a hidden pocket in the cuff of his suit jacket. They continued to dance until the end of the song and then Spencer bowed again to her and began to walk away towards the side of the room. As Spencer walked away from Agent Prentiss he telepathically connected to Phil, 'Sir, what is the plan for extraction? If i remove my tie, my suit is nondescript, which means I can shift, so I look less like myself.'  
"You have not yet been spotted so if you can discreetly make it to the bathroom and then change you should be fine." Phil replied over the earpiece, "Once changed you should be fine to make your way out of the Embassy and I will be waiting for you with the car.”  
‘Yes, Sir.’ Spencer sent back. He made his way towards the bathroom, once he was inside he removed his tie and hid it inside his jacket, if he just put it in the bin it could arouse suspicion that he hadn't left willingly (it was also one of his favorite ties, Phil had given it to him, and it was his favorite color). He then shifted his appearance, made himself slightly shorter, and broader, though not enough to ruin the fit of his suit. He changed his eyes to a blue-grey and his hair to blond.  
Spencer left the bathroom and made his way out of the building, he kept his empathy active but didn’t sense anything that was out of place at the party. As he left the building, he sent a message to Phil alerting him to his departure from the building. —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————  
They made their way Rome to the Ciampino airport where the SHIELD plane they had flown into Rome was parked. Once they had made it onto the plane, they began to debrief.  
“I think Agent Prentiss’ friend, Mr Asher Cross, has some form of empathy, he probably has another power as well, assuming he’s a mutant rather than any other form of powered person.”  
“What made you think that, Spencer?” Phil asked. They were sat across from one another at the table on the plane, Spencer had a mug of coffee in front of him which he occasionally took a drink from.  
“When I shook his hand, I felt something brushing against my shields and then I could feel that he didn’t believe the cover story that she was telling him, but there was no indication from Agent Prentiss that he wasn't going to believe the story. I think it would be worth trying to at least gauge what type of powers he has. While I don’t think he would be a good candidate for being a field agent due to his position in society but he could be helpful as a contact and would mean another person we could use to help with covers at similar events.” He picked up his mug again, but when he tried to drink from it found that it was empty. While he waited for Phil to think about what he had said he walked over to the kitchen area of the plane to make himself another drink.  
Phil watched him move to the kitchen, “Spencer, could you please make me a cup of tea while you are over there?” he sighed, “I think that Mr Cross warrants at least a conversation and it may be best for someone he has already interacted with to approach him, especially as you share a similar power. The best way for you to approach him is most likely for you to book an appointment with him once he returns to America. It will give him the advantage of being comfortable in the meeting place, but it would be more suspicious for you to randomly appear at the same events him and he likely would be wary about anything you tried to speak to him about.”  
Spencer could feel Phil's uncertainty about the whole thing with Asher, he must have been exhausted from running the mission as he was usually one of the few SHIELD agents that he couldn’t get anything from, connecting telepathically with him during a mission was an exception. Spencer thought that the person they used to train agents in shielding their minds was only a telepath and did not know that unless you were naturally gifted in shielding your mind two separate shields were needed for thoughts and emotions. Admittedly Spencer wasn’t entirely sure whether Phil actually knew how to shield his mind or if the man just had such strict control over his emotions that it had the same effect as true shields.  
“What do we know about him?” he put the mug of tea down in front of Phil and sat back down in his seat, he was trying to get Phil to focus on what they did know rather than the unknowns surrounding Asher.  
“Asher Cross, he founded Cross Enterprise a company focuses on medical technology and introducing affordable medical solutions. He also founded the Silvestri Foundation, which worked in a similar way to the Maria Stark Foundation, raising money through events aimed at which class circles and then distributing it to multiple smaller charities, the Silvestri Foundation mainly gave money to mental health and abuse charities as well as funding low-cost clinics to supply affordable health care. His mother Amaryllis Tatiana Cross nee Silvestri was from old Italian money, and he had named the Silvestri foundation after her. There isn’t much known about his father, Charles Edward Cross, he didn’t run in the same circles as Mrs Cross, and it isn't clear how they met. About seven years ago he died, there were no indications in the press that his death was anything other than a heart attack, the younger Mr cross was at college [Italian uni/American college] at the time, he was in the middle of studying for a degree in business having gone to college a year early. When he graduated he first founded Cross Enterprise, and then he founded the Silvestri foundation earlier this year, and it has already started to improve the lives of the people who live around the first clinic.” Spencer felt Phil’s emotions go back to his usual controlled calm as he read out the information SHIELD had on Asher. “There was some speculation that the reason Mr Cross set up the Silvestri Foundation was that his mother had been abused by his father and he decided to help people who are in similar situations but less fortunate than his own family. Interestingly the foundation supports charities that focus on supporting male and LGBTQ+ victims of abuse as well as ones that only support female abuse survivors.”  
“Once we are back at SHIELD I will call his secretary and arrange an appointment with him under the name Kaden Connor, and we can plan what I should say to him.” Spencer put his mug down on the table. “Who were the HYDRA agents that you identified in the room?”  
“They were two fairly low-level agents. However, information about them was found on the computers in the base that we rescued you from, and we were worried they would identify you and either try to take you back or kill you. It wasn’t clear whether they had worked with you while you were there or if they had just been stationed at the same base for a time, but it was felt that it was too easy for them to possibly spot you, especially as you looked very similar to your natural appearance. We do not think that you having left the way you did will bring any attention to either Agent Prentiss or Mr Cross.” Phil leaned back and relaxed in his chair, “How are your current degrees going?”  
“I finished my PhD in Mathematics and started one in Chemistry, I have also visited the SHIELD academy to see if there were any courses I wanted to do there. I am planning to start a degree in Psychology or behavioral science, I think trying to understand more about how people think will help me with my powers and blending in on missions. I also want to start a degree in Engineering which I will probably turn into a PhD.” Spencer also relaxed into his seat, and the two agents continued to discuss his various studies as the plane continued on to Washington.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm also sorry for the wait between the last chapter and this teaser, unfortunately RL got in the way  
> The third chapter has already been started so hopefully there wont be as long a wait for it once i post the rest of this one.
> 
> I have become less busy for the moment so CH 3 should only take me as long as it takes to write the rest of it (which probably won't be too long)
> 
> Thanks so much for being patient with me  
> KHB


	3. A Revelation and A Seduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer has a discussion with Coulson (though it could be seen as more of a rant) and the goes on a mission, there are complications.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2 chapters in 2 days don't expect it to happen often

Spencer had asked Phil for a meeting shortly after they returned from Rome. While there had been a few meetings about how he had been used and treated between his sale to HYDRA age 12 and his rescue at 16, mainly the focus had been on specific missions and the experiments he had been subjected to while there. He had not been sent on many missions in the year since his rescue, mainly he was sent on simple missions being passed chips by informants at various locations, taking advantage of his abilities to change his appearance so his movements were hidden. To him, it felt like they were not using him to his full potential, though he was grateful for the extra time to work on his various degrees.  
“Sir, I have a question about some of the types of things that I was sent on before I came here.” He was slightly nervous that his questioning of the missions he had been sent on could lead to him being removed from any other missions and left to study and then teach at the academy once it was felt he had enough knowledge he should pass it on.  
“Spencer, what exactly do you want to talk about in regards to how HYDRA was using you? I would not have thought that you would want to think about being there, surely it was not a positive experience being held by them?” Phil asked. Spencer could sense his confusion even if his voice stayed even.  
“I’ve been here just over a year and I've only been on a single type of mission, I've not even been on a high number of them either. I do understand that at first you were testing me and figuring out what I could do but at the same time you stopped assessing me fairly quickly and have kept both the number and type of missions I was subsequently sent on low. While I am grateful for the extra time to spend on my studies, I quickly find that solely studying leads to me becoming bored and while I do not want to be sent on all of the types of missions I was sent on there were some that I found enjoyable as a stretch of my skills and abilities. I also found being sent on missions meant my days did not become routine and mind-numbing in their repetitiveness.” Spencer became increasingly fidgety as he spoke, struggling to contain his nervous energy.  
“What types of missions did you find stimulating then? And which did you hate and only do because you were forced?” Phil seemed almost amused at the way Spencer couldn’t keep still while standing there essentially requesting more work.  
“Most of the time I hated assassinations, especially close up kills. I found that as they were dying the target’s mental shield would fall and the fear and pain coming off them was often overwhelming. Assassinations done through distance shots and by methods such as poison did not have the same effect on me. I found it easier to ignore the things I got from the target when I knew the target had hurt others, occasionally HYDRA would use me to remove serial killers or rapists who were targeting HYDRA agents, those kills were the easiest but none were truly easy. The ones I actually enjoyed the most were the one HYDRA classed as seductions, but I never actually slept with anyone.” Spencer’s nervous energy got the best of him and he began to pace, “My mental powers allow me to put the targets to sleep believing that we had sex while I then either searched for the information I was sent to find on paper and, occasionally, also searched their minds for it. But generally, any mission that allowed me to leave and see places outside the base I was kept was enjoyable. I know I was still a minor when I arrived but I'm starting to feel as trapped here as I did back there and here I have a lot fewer missions to feel as if I have some form of freedom.” Spencer climbed on top of his desk and sat crossed legged on top of it.  
“Firstly, none of the handlers here felt comfortable sending a minor out on either assassination or honey-pot missions, I don’t think any of us thought you could use your powers to get around having sex on a honey-pot. Secondly, you could have asked to go out to places when not on missions, you would have had to have had another agent with you as an escort while you were a minor but you weren’t confined to the base. Next were you aware that removing knowledge from someones mind in that way is considered to be a form of mental rape, your unconscious scanning of emotions is not counted as its seen as being similar to those people who are skilled in intuitively reading body language but purposely entering someone's mind without their consent is seen as rape.” He sighed, “Which of your powers are you skilled enough in using that could be helpful in the field?”  
“Well, obviously I have the empathy and telepathy, which I'm glad you are telling me I don’t have to use to take information from people’s minds, I never enjoyed doing that. Using their lust and imagination against them so I didn’t have to sleep with them was one thing actively removing their thoughts was another. The telepathy can also be used to create a temporary mental link between myself and my handler or back up within a certain distance, though I only really feel comfortable doing that with you or Agents Barton and Romanoff. My appearance and gender shifting can be used to get me into places where only some people are allowed to go, I can, with time to prepare, accurately imitate a specific person’s mannerisms and voice as well as their appearance. While my technopathy isn’t currently very useful however I’m planning on working with the Engineering Department at the Academy to help hone it so I’m able to use those powers with higher levels of precision building off the Engineering Degree I’m currently working towards. My healing factor is not really applicable in the field but it does allow me to rapidly heal from almost everything, even most fatal wounds, though I don’t think I could recover from something like decapitation or being in the center of an explosion. My eidetic memory can also help as it allows me to recite word for word everything I hear and read, this means that if I need to find out information without alerting the owner of it to it being compromised I don’t need to remove documents to know their contents.” He jumped off his desk and went back to pacing, “No one ever told me that I wasn’t confined to base and since I wasn’t told otherwise I assumed that I was only allowed out for missions, I don’t think I would have trusted anyone other than you or the others in Strike Team Delta to have my back while off of the base and most of the time when I’ve not been on missions they’ve been off base on other missions and you are just extremely busy even without your decision to be the sole handler for the three of us.” He sat down on the edge of Phil’s desk.  
“Please get off my desk Spencer, if you feel the need to sit on furniture that was not designed to be sat on please sit on your own desk rather than mine, that was part of the reason you got your own desk in here, well that and the fact you would otherwise take over the floor in here.”  
Spencer laughed, “It was fun watching agents trying to figure out how to talk to you around all my white-boards spread across the floor. At least once you decided I was allowed paper and pens it was slightly easier, there was less worry about smudging things if they stepped on my work then. So can I go on more than just basic data retrieval missions?”  
“Yes, now you are 18 and therefore not a minor SHIELD will be more willing to send you on other types of missions. Do you want to be sent on target elimination missions? And are you comfortable being the honey for men and women or only one or the other?”  
“As long as they are distance kills, yes, otherwise no I don’t. I have been bait for both in the past and it never really bothered me, though I’m definitely more interested in men in my personal life though that doesn't affect my ability to complete that type of mission.”  
“Now you’re 18 you can also move off of the base if you wish, or if you want to keep living on the base you can go on trips to places as long as it doesn’t interfere with any missions you’re on and you let me know when you leave and when you come back, mainly for my own peace of mind. Now unless you want to leave straight away, in which case you may want to change, that uniform may be fine on base but a jumpsuit like that will stand out in the normal world, you should return to your studies. I will brief you for any new missions in the same way as all of your previous ones.” Spencer nodded, moved over to his desk and pulled out the equations he had been working on.  
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Spencer walked through the hotel lobby, he discreetly scanned the room for his target. He was looking for Robert Brewer who was the Personal Assistant to an important figure in the Indian Parliament who had access to information that was needed by SHIELD. The man was known to regularly take home important paperwork which would have the needed information in them. Spencer currently looked like a tall red-headed woman with large natural looking breasts, dressed in a modest navy skirt suit, she was temporarily replacing Mr Brewer’s normal escort who had been paid for her silence and had consented to Spencer putting a fabricated memory of a normal appointment I case someone came looking for the leak of the information.  
“Nephthys, the target should be entering the lobby now, he has an official briefcase with him so it’s likely the information we are looking for is either in it or in his room,” Phil told her, instead of having an earpiece inside her ear, one of her earrings had a small speaker hidden inside of it and the other had a sensitive microphone that could pick up her speech as well as any sounds close to her. She turned so she was facing the entrance way and watched as her target walked into the lobby, he was looking around nervously as if he expected to be attacked, even in the lobby of a high-class hotel. He started walking towards the side corridor where the lifts were. Spencer got up from the sofa she had been sitting on and casually followed him.  
“Mr Brewer,” even having seen her he jumped when she addressed him. “I was early for our appointment so when I saw you I thought to join you straight away.” Just as she finished speaking the lift to the right of them dinged and the doors opened. “If you don’t object, of course. If you want I can leave and return at our arranged time.”  
He had startled for a second time at the lift. “No, no it's fine you can come with me now,” he gestured with the briefcase, “I will just need to put these away before we begin.” She walked behind him into the lift and ended up closer to the controls than he was. “I’m on the 20th floor, Miss Jones.” She pressed the appropriate button.  
Spencer focused on Brewer’s emotions as the lift rose up the hotel towards their destination, she carefully lowers his fear and nervousness while subtly increasing his arousal. By the time the doors opened, he had gone from being almost paranoid and very twitchy to seeming almost confident in his movement as he lead her to his hotel room. Even with her manipulation of his emotions he still managed to fumble with the key card twice before he managed to let them into the room.  
“Is there anything in particular you would like for us to participate in this evening, Mr Brewer?” she sat on one of the two that were in the room, placing the black briefcase she had brought with her onto the floor by her feet, she watched him remove some of the documents from the briefcase and lock them in a drawer in the desk before storing the briefcase itself away in the wardrobe.  
“Could we, I mean,” he paused and walked towards the small fridge that was in the room, “What do you have in your briefcase that we can use?”  
“Mr Brewer, you know my rules, if you drink any alcohol, or take any other mind-altering drug for that matter, I will end our meeting at once.” She set down her briefcase on a small table and opened it, unlike his briefcase which has the Emblem of India embossed on the side, accented with gold leaf, hers is simple and black, almost identical to any briefcase owned by any businessman. Inside, however, there was a selection of items such as coils of rope as well as lube and various dildos and plugs. Unknown to Brewer there was also a secondary compartment behind the selection of implements, in this compartment she had memory sticks and camera’s as well as a gun and a few other weapons. “As you can see I have various items which we can use, you just need to give me a basic understanding of what you wish for us to do and your safe word if you want to do anything that could cause you distress.”  
“Thank you for that reminder, Miss Jones, I’ve had a rather trying day and would have forgotten that particular rule, though I do understand it. If you don’t mind I would rather like to be put into bondage, that purple rope you have looks wonderful, after that I would rather not be in control, to be allowed to relax and let go of the stresses of the last month.” He sighed and started to remove his suit jacket. “You know my limits and I use the traffic light system, red for stop, amber for slow down.”  
She watched as he finished undressing. “I like to check before I start a session, it’s good practice.” She began to unbutton her blouse, “If you are fully undressed, lie down in the middle of the bed with your arms on the pillow above your head.” She smiled and began to unwind the rope he had chosen, even manipulating his mind and emotions she found it raised less suspicion if her targets had whatever marks on their body’s that they expected to receive in the encounter they had with her (or in some cases him). So she would bind his hands to the headboard and would open him up with the small plug and she would use her powers to make him believe much more happened after that and then send him to sleep, it was much easier to build the scenario in his mind off of a real or live situation than to try and pull past experiences forward in a way that they felt new.  
“Don’t move your hands” Spencer instructed Brewer. Carefully she wound the rope around his left wrist, behind the central post in the headboard and then back around his right, checking that the rope wasn't too tight as she went. She then carefully wound each end of the rope down his arms tying intricate knots to keep it in place as she went. She carefully covered the smaller plug with lube and carefully pushed it into Mr Brewer. Then she carefully accessed his mind and used his imagination to create the rest of the scene before sending him to sleep.  
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Once Mr Brewer was asleep Spencer untied him and removed the plug. She then opened up the second compartment in her briefcase, she grabbed the memory stick that was there and then pulled Brewster’s laptop out of his bag and turned it on. She made the computer to upload all of the documents onto the drive before turning to the desk where he had locked some papers away. She quickly picked the lock and read through the papers memorizing them as she went, she then read through the remaining documents from the Brewer’s briefcase and the ones which had been left strewn on the desk, presumably from the last time Brewer had been working there. She could hear people walking along the other end of the corridor.  
“Nephthys, there are HYDRA agents on the floor you are on,” Coulson spoke to her over the earpiece. Spencer quickly swept all the papers and the laptop into the hidden compartment while using her powers to re-button her blouse, she walked out of the room with purpose, as if it was perfectly normal for her to be leaving others hotel rooms with a briefcase of sex toys. She turned towards the lifts and saw a group of two men and a woman walking along another section of the corridor. She kept her pace steady and held still while she waited for the lift to arrive on the 20th floor.  
“Nephthys, when the lift arrives take it up to the highest floor, then turn left and take the fire escape out to the roof.” The lift doors opened, and Spencer pressed the highest number she saw. The lift rose and quickly arrived at the top floor, she easily found the fire escape and unlocked the door out without setting off the alarm.  
“Coulson, There’s no way up, the escape stairs only go down to the ground.”  
“Can you jump down rather than having to take each flight?” Spencer didn’t bother replying, she climbed over the handrail and let go. She let a few floors fall past her before she grabbed hold of the next landing. She paused to breathe for a second and to make sure she had managed to bring the briefcase with her, then she let go and repeated the process until she reached the third floor. Spencer carefully climbed back onto the fire escape and smoothed down her clothes. Then she made her way back into the building and out through the lobby on the ground floor. Spencer walked along the road until she reached the car that was left for her to depart in and then drove back to the airfield where she was met by Phil.  
“Well, that was more exciting than we were expecting.”  
“That is an understatement Spencer, give me the case, and you can go and rest, we can debrief once you have rested and healed.” Spencer walked onto the plane and found the bedroom, she quickly got out of the suit she had worn for the missing and immediately shifted back to his natural form. He had discovered that he would heal even quicker as himself than he did when he was changed, and his healing speed when shifted was almost four times as fast as a baseline human. He stretched and then dressed in his standard uniform, a type of skintight body armour that moved with him and had enough stretch to accommodate his shifting, the fit of the outfit also allowed him to use his ability to camouflage himself which only worked on clothing and items that were close to or touching his skin. He had not told SHIELD about this power, or some of his other powers including enhanced senses as he did not trust them to lock him in a lab to find out why his body had responded to the experiment done on him by HYDRA in a way that gave him more and stronger powers. So he had only told them of enough to make him a skilled field agent and about the ones which he had found he needed to use regularly, such as his shifting, or the ones he couldn’t turn off, like his healing. He had chosen to keep the rest hidden as they were the ones which could help him escape if SHIELD turned on him. He curled up on the bed and went to sleep, his dreams filled with thoughts of Asher.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has not been beta'd though it has been run though a grammar checker and the section with sort-of-sex was checked for me  
> I have started the next chapter but its nowhere near finished yet


End file.
